Vintage Sports Cards – Baseball – Basketball – Football – Hockey
For all the era of overproduction insert chasers out there—one of my favorite ads from 1992.
The Cal Ripken Jr. 1992 Donruss Signature Series card, in particular, has become really popular over the past few years; I believe PSA Mint 9/Auto 10s are well over $1k now.
Here’s a 1969 Topps Cello Box Proof Sheet. Notice both the purple and red box variations on the single sheet.
The sheet was described as a large 29” x 38” uncut final process sheet that contains six complete 24 count ten cent 1969 Topps display boxes, with each box containing the color photos of Willie Mays, Carl Yastrzemski, Bob Gibson, Pete Rose, and others. The sheet was folded down and across at the center over the years and was listed as in VG condition.
Here are examples of both 1969 Topps cello box variations.
Check out The Unopened Archive for more!
Here’s the original 5” x 7” pen and ink artwork used for Ted Williams’ 1969 Topps card.
Here’s the front of the card for reference.
Check out The Original Artwork Archive for more!
Here’s a gem from the past: a 1952 Topps Baseball High Numbers Partial Uncut Sheet featuring Eddie Mathews in the lower right corner. It’s been a while since I’ve spotted this beauty in the hobby.
While just a partial sheet, it’s pretty rare to find 25 1952 Topps high-number cards together, let alone in an uncut 5×5 grid! The sheet’s overall condition was described as “Very Good” in the lot’s description in Mastro’s November 2000 Fine Sports Auction catalog.
Check out The Uncut Sheet Archive for more!
I recently discovered that this 1961 Post Cereal baseball advertising display sign existed when I found it inside an auction catalog from April 2000.
The cardboard sign was described as being a 28” circular heavy cardboard sign with blow-up pictures of nine 1961 Post Cereal cards, including Willie Mays (autographed) Whitey Ford, Nelson Fox, Roy Face, Pete Runnels, Lew Burdette, Ken Boyer, Jim Gentile, and Jim Lemon.
The auction presumed that some printed advertising in the center was probably missing.
It appears that Collect Auctions re-sold the same sign in November 2018 for $1160. They included this close-up of the Mays card (with a Beckett Authentication Service endorsement).
I’ve been reviewing my Baseball Cards magazine collection from late 1992 and have been seeing Studio cards everywhere. Hello nostalgia!
Here’s the cover of the December issue.
And this ad was on the back of the October and December issues in 1992; I might need to pick up a few packs.
The September 1992 issue of Baseball Cards Magazine is special because it deep-dives into Upper Deck’s earliest years. One of my favorite things they included was this checklist of all the sets, but primarily all of their promotional-sheet issues.
You can read that they credited Don Butler, with the assistance of Jeff Kurowski and Nigel Spill, with putting it together for Sports Collectors Digest.
Here are two of the sheets pictured in the magazine.
